Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Bleed: A creature that is taking bleed damage takes the listed amount of damage at the beginning of its turn. Bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or through the application of any spell that cures hit point damage (even if the bleed is ability damage). Some bleed effects cause ability damage or even ability drain. Bleed effects do not stack with each other unless they deal different kinds of damage. When two or more bleed effects deal the same kind of damage, take the worse effect. In this case, ability drain is worse than ability damage.
Emphasis mine.
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Bleed: A creature that is taking bleed damage takes the listed amount of damage at the beginning of its turn. Bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or through the application of any spell that cures hit point damage (even if the bleed is ability damage). Some bleed effects cause ability damage or even ability drain. Bleed effects do not stack with each other unless they deal different kinds of damage. When two or more bleed effects deal the same kind of damage, take the worse effect. In this case, ability drain is worse than ability damage.Emphasis mine.
Personally, I think that needs to be changed. I don't think that was thought out very well, and I personally house-rule that ability bleed can only be stopped via a Lesser Restoration or better spell, or a DC25 Heal check (First Aid) or DC15 Heal check (Long-term Care). Ability damage is much more severe than hit point bleed, and the causes are more abstract, and as such it is only reasonable that it should be more difficult to stop than hit point bleed.
being that the skill check for Heal-Long term care takes 8 hours- i hope they can survive the immense ammount of ability bleed they are accumulating
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being that the skill check for Heal-Long term care takes 8 hours- i hope they can survive the immense ammount of ability bleed they are accumulating
You make a good point. Maybe I'll just stick with the DC25 heal check for first aid. At any rate, there is absolutely no reason why it should be as easy to stop ability bleed as hit point bleed. I realize they did that to throw a bone to PC's, but that makes it no less nonsensical.
Ability bleed is gnarly enough as it is (being able to kill you in only a few rounds) it doesn't need to be harder to cure as well.
Cleric: I only prepped one restoration and I already used it on the fighter after we fought that shadow. I can heal you tomorrow.
Wizard: I only have 10 Con and I'm bleeding 2 points per round!
Cleric: How about a nice Channel Energy? Will that work?
Wizard: (Dies)
Cleric: Well, I get Raise Dead in only 4 more levels. *GENTLE REPOSE*
Edit: Not to mention that with a 3 round casting time, Lesser Restoration is not a combat spell. I hope the Wizard can survive till the end of combat or the party can survive 3 whole rounds being down 2 characters.
And a DC 25 First Aid check takes an hour. Good Luck with that, too.
I think the bleed rules work fine as they are, no reason to make ability bleed even more horrendous then it already is.
The only things that I have seen which cause ability bleed are the Paizo Crit and Fumble decks. And all of those are still fundamentally HP damaging attacks which CAUSE the secondary effect of ability bleed. Which means, therefor, that hp curative effects should stop the bleed, as they are curing the CAUSE of the ability bleed.
And we have to remember, the DCs are set up against a normal person's capabilities, not a trained professional. The average joe has a +0 to +1 modifier in heal, because he has no ranks and at best a +1 wisdom modifier. The average person suffering from such an effect is likely to die under such unskilled hands.
An actual healer/EMT/medic/physician might have a mod of +9, from skill focus, a trained rank, and a +2 wisdom mod. And even then, he isn't guaranteed success against DC 15. A true professional, with the self-sufficient feat and two more class levels, and perhaps a 16 in his wisdom, could have a +14, ensuring success even in the worst of luck.
tl;dr +1 to those who say ability bleed is bad enough and doesn't need to be worse.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Cleric: I only prepped one restoration and I already used it on the fighter after we fought that shadow. I can heal you tomorrow.
Wizard: I only have 10 Con and I'm bleeding 2 points per round!
Cleric: How about a nice Channel Energy? Will that work?
Wizard: (Dies)
Cleric: Well, I get Raise Dead in only 4 more levels. *GENTLE REPOSE*
HERESY! A cleric without the Heal skill!
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The only things that I have seen which cause ability bleed are the Paizo Crit and Fumble decks.
As it is currently written, the new gunslinger class can choose to do strength, dex or con bleed with a successful attack.
I hear what people are saying about it being lethal enough as it is, but like I said before, this was something that was done to throw PCs a bone, and they didn't bother to make it make sense. If there is anything I've ever hated about Pathfinder (and it's an awesome game, so I haven't found much to complain about), it's that they seem so worried about making it as easy as possible for PCs to just romp through everything with hardly a decent challenge (unless you throw them up against things with CRs considerably higher than the party's ECL) that they've sometimes abandoned even trying to make some things make sense. And I'm sorry, but making something as dire as ability bleed as easy to cure as measly hit point bleed doesn't make sense, not nary one iota.
I can understand the desire to depower things that can kill. But that also takes a lot of the dynamic out of the game. If clerics aren't smart enough to put ranks in the Heal skill, they deserve to have their companions die around them. Lesser Restoration is a 2nd level spell, it's pretty easy to come by if casters are smart enough to prepare it. Yeah, it takes three rounds to cast, but that'll also give the party a chance to get clever and creative and find ways to protect the caster. Smart parties find ways to survive, dumb parties die, dems da facts.
I agree with the others that using a lesser restore is too harsh for ability bleed.
However, if you do insist on it - consider having an iterative heal check: ability bleed can be reduced by 1 by a successful DC 15 heal check. Repeated heal checks can thus be used to reduce the bleed to 0.
The only things that I have seen which cause ability bleed are the Paizo Crit and Fumble decks.As it is currently written, the new gunslinger class can choose to do strength, dex or con bleed with a successful attack.
I hear what people are saying about it being lethal enough as it is, but like I said before, this was something that was done to throw PCs a bone, and they didn't bother to make it make sense. If there is anything I've ever hated about Pathfinder (and it's an awesome game, so I haven't found much to complain about), it's that they seem so worried about making it as easy as possible for PCs to just romp through everything with hardly a decent challenge (unless you throw them up against things with CRs considerably higher than the party's ECL) that they've sometimes abandoned even trying to make some things make sense. And I'm sorry, but making something as dire as ability bleed as easy to cure as measly hit point bleed doesn't make sense, not nary one iota.
I can understand the desire to depower things that can kill. But that also takes a lot of the dynamic out of the game. If clerics aren't smart enough to put ranks in the Heal skill, they deserve to have their companions die around them. Lesser Restoration is a 2nd level spell, it's pretty easy to come by if casters are smart enough to prepare it. Yeah, it takes three rounds to cast, but that'll also give the party a chance to get clever and creative and find ways to protect the caster. Smart parties find ways to survive, dumb parties die, dems da facts.
What if the Cleric already cast the lesser restoration he prepped he only gets 5-6 slots max and can't spontaneously cast that spell, just how many should he prep on the off chance that he MIGHT encounter the rare Ability Bleed (the ONLY thing Restoration cures that absolutely can't wait until tomorrow.) And Restoring in combat, please, on the third round just hit the cleric with a Scorching Ray, Maximized or Empowered if possible, it wouldn't be too hard for a CR appropriate blast mage to draw a unmakeable concentration check from the cleric, and, short of ending the combat next round, there's not many ways to guarantee your cleric won't be damaged and interrupted.
Also, many Clerics only get 1-2 skill points. Hardly enough to keep Heal maxed, especially when they also want points in Diplomacy, Knowledge(Religion), and Spellcraft. Are you saying that a Cleric with 9 Int that could only afford to put a couple of points in heal, enough to reliably make the standard DC 15 Heal Check (he's more of a face cleric than a heal cleric, that's what he has spells for), deserves to have his party die? And what of a party that doesn't have a Cleric? They rely on wands and the meager healing of a Paladin or a Bard. If no one in a cleric-less party can make a DC 25 heal check, they all deserve to die unless someone bites the bullet and plays a character he/she doesn't want?That's like a no save trap that that auto-kills in 12 rounds. "Oh, well, you should have brought a Rogue."
How is this fun for anyone involved?
Bleed damage is dangerous enough for a party short on healing. Ability Bleed doubly so. Making it so that only specialized healers can reliably cure bleed means every party has to have one, or they might as well not play. That's not a recipe for fun times.
Bleed damage is dangerous enough for a party short on healing. Ability Bleed doubly so. Making it so that only specialized healers can reliably cure bleed means every party has to have one, or they might as well not play. That's not a recipe for fun times.
You clearly missed the point. The players are not here to have fun. They are at the table to make intelligent, realistic decisions about not just their character's actions, but the metadesign of the characters and the whole party. Any deviance in this plan is punished by slaughtering the whole party. It's the only way we can make players learn.
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Ignoring the melodrama of the last two posts, part of the fun of the game is in finding creative ways to overcome a challenging situation. The point of the game is not to guarantee survival of the entire party in every encounter by removing every challenge that could in some way become lethal to them - if characters never run the risk of death, they will lose interest just as quickly as if every encounter results in character death. As it is, ability bleed is an extremely rare occurence anyway, and is more likely to happen at higher levels when foes have greater access to things that improve weapons' threat ranges. That said, the suggestion of an iterative heal check is a good idea. Maybe increasing the heal check by +10 and requiring at least a lesser restoration is a bit much, but the overriding point is that it shouldn't be *as easy.* The heal check should be tweaked in some way - iterative, +5, three consecutive heal checks, etc. That would put it on a par with several poisons and diseases. Or perhaps even iterative cure spells (one casting reduces bleed by half, and once it is reduced to one point, the next casting stops it altogether). But there needs to be some extra degree of difficulty over hit point bleed.
Ignoring the melodrama of the last two posts, part of the fun of the game is in finding creative ways to overcome a challenging situation. The point of the game is not to guarantee survival of the entire party in every encounter by removing every challenge that could in some way become lethal to them - if characters never run the risk of death, they will lose interest just as quickly as if every encounter results in character death. As it is, ability bleed is an extremely rare occurence anyway, and is more likely to happen at higher levels when foes have greater access to things that improve weapons' threat ranges. That said, the suggestion of an iterative heal check is a good idea. Maybe increasing the heal check by +10 and requiring at least a lesser restoration is a bit much, but the overriding point is that it shouldn't be *as easy.* The heal check should be tweaked in some way - iterative, +5, three consecutive heal checks, etc. That would put it on a par with several poisons and diseases. Or perhaps even iterative cure spells (one casting reduces bleed by half, and once it is reduced to one point, the next casting stops it altogether). But there needs to be some extra degree of difficulty over hit point bleed.
The extra degree of difficulty comes from the fact that Ability Bleed pretty much has to be healed now. Hit point bleed is detracted from a relatively large pool, and there's no penalty for losing hit points until you lose all of them. Ability bleed is detracted from a much, much smaller pool, and as you lose ability points you also lose, hit points, damage, AC, saves, spells. It costs a lot more to wait until after combat, when actions are no longer a premium, to heal ability damage. Not to mention that ability damage is harder to heal than hit point damage anyway.
Having iterative checks just means it costs even more actions, in combat. If an enemy figures a way to reliably deal out ability bleed every turn, it could easily be more than a single cleric can handle. If, say, Ultimate Magic had a spell that dealt 1d2 bleed to one ability, I'd be very afraid of a sorcerer capable spamming said spell with only one cleric in the party. If he had a rod of quicken spell *shudder*
Ability bleed doesn't somehow become less deadly because you can heal it with only 1 action. It still has all the secondary effects of ability damage, the damage still harder to cure, and it still likely has to be cured in combat, wasting precious actions, rather than toughing it out until combat is over.
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I'm not buying the argument that making it more difficult to stop ability bleed will break the game. Persistant poisons deal more ability damage per round than most ability bleed effects, and they require higher level spells to stop than lesser restoration, and they last more rounds without being neutralized than you're likely to spend bleeding with access to heal checks or iterative cure spells, and you're more likely to encounter such than you are to suffer ability bleed from a crit or fumble, unless you are up against gunslingers.
Having ability bleed only cureable by restoration is kind of like creating a 2nd level spell called "protection from rocks", which is a single-target spell that protects the target from falling rocks, then occacionly saying "rocks fall. you die. Unless you've got protection from rocks going." Or, for example, include a "rolling ball of certain death" that moved in a tight corridor at a pace of 40 ft. per turn and anyone not fast enough is subject to certain death.
It doesn't make the game more challenging in a fun way, since the effects that cause ability bleed are rare enough to be completely arbitrary and aren't limited to a certain kind of monster (like energy drain is somewhat; you know to prepare Death Ward if you're going up against vampires) and the only way to avoid them are a fairly specific and odd spell that you don't prepare several of on a regular basis, or wouldn't if this wasn't the case.
Yes, you can make it more challenging by making the effects more severe, and I'm often for that approach. For example, I still think negative levels should inhibit spellcasting the way they did RAW before JJ or whoever it was said it didn't (not saying it's a bad ruling, but it's not the way we do it at our table). The difference is that auto-death situations should be (quite) easy to prevent by playing smart. Effects that slowly ticks away at the players can be harder to prevent, because they aren't as random due to law of averages.
Poisons are one example of the slow-and-steady effect, because they are 1. more easy to stop, because of antidotes and the like, and 2. they are rarely lethal due to being able to save against them, time and again.
I'm not buying the argument that making it more difficult to stop ability bleed will break the game. Persistant poisons deal more ability damage per round than most ability bleed effects, and they require higher level spells to stop than lesser restoration, and they last more rounds without being neutralized than you're likely to spend bleeding with access to heal checks or iterative cure spells, and you're more likely to encounter such than you are to suffer ability bleed from a crit or fumble, unless you are up against gunslingers.
You can save against poison every round to stop it. The bleed does not have that option meaning the two are not even close in terms of lethality.
Something that even gives you a 50% chance to save is a lot easier to deal with than something that just happens, and never ends especially since the duration on poison eventually runs out.
The only things that I have seen which cause ability bleed are the Paizo Crit and Fumble decks.
Deadly Stroke has ability bleed
Deadly Stroke (Combat)With a well-placed strike, you can bring a swift and painful end to most foes.
Prerequisites: Dazzling Display, Greater Weapon Focus, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus, proficiency with the selected weapon, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: As a standard action, make a single attack with the weapon for which you have Greater Weapon Focus against a stunned or flat-footed opponent. If you hit, you deal double the normal damage and the target takes 1 point of Constitution bleed (see Conditions). The additional damage and bleed is not multiplied on a critical hit.
Deactivating my awesome sarcasm generator for a moment, I don't really see why ability bleed should be in a special, distinct category from hp bleed. It's already more dangerous than most other ongoing effects, and making it more difficult to deal with just increases its lethality unnecessarily. I agree that there's generally no need to dial down the threats so as to never challenge PCs, but also remember that we're not playing 2e anymore.
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I agree that there's generally no need to dial down the threats so as to never challenge PCs, but also remember that we're not playing 2e anymore.
No, we're not playing 2e anymore. We're playing a version where the pc's are considerably stronger and the challenges they face (relative to the power of the pc's) are considerably weaker than in 2e.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Nightwish, if you want to make ability bleed more deadly to your players, that's your choice, do what works for your game.
Just remember, what's more deadly to your PCs is also more deadly to your NPCs/Monsters. Expect players to get their hands on ways to cause ability bleed (through feats, weapons, new spells, or just plain old fashioned critical hits), and to exploit it at every opportunity.
Unlike an adventuring party, the enemies that populate your encounters often won't have access to lesser restoration or ranks in Heal, making ability damage extremely dangerous to them. If you're not careful, ability bleed could become your PCs newest 'win-button'.
Nightwish, if you want to make ability bleed more deadly to your players, that's your choice, do what works for your game.
Just remember, what's more deadly to your PCs is also more deadly to your NPCs/Monsters. Expect players to get their hands on ways to cause ability bleed (through feats, weapons, new spells, or just plain old fashioned critical hits), and to exploit it at every opportunity.
Unlike an adventuring party, the enemies that populate your encounters often won't have access to lesser restoration or ranks in Heal, making ability damage extremely dangerous to them. If you're not careful, ability bleed could become your PCs newest 'win-button'.
Even hit point bleed is a win button now. You get a rogue or a melee type with the feat that allows bleeding on a crit, and the party can just walk away. Even if the bleed is only 3 a round, and the monster has 210 hp that is only 70 rounds which is only 7 minutes. Unless I am in a hurry to finish the monster right now why continue fighting it, and possibly getting hurt when I can walk away, assuming that is an option, and pick up the loot or at least not get hurt anymore.
I agree that there's generally no need to dial down the threats so as to never challenge PCs, but also remember that we're not playing 2e anymore.No, we're not playing 2e anymore. We're playing a version where the pc's are considerably stronger and the challenges they face (relative to the power of the pc's) are considerably weaker than in 2e.
If you want to make the game more difficult, it's better to increase the CR of opponents they meet.
As a group of 5th level PCs, I'd rather challenge a CR9 or 10 monster than take even one point of constitution bleed. In the case of the CR9 creature, I can actually affect the outcome of the battle - sure, there's a large risk someone dies, but we can change those odds with good tactics.
Smart parties find ways to survive, dumb parties die, dems da facts.
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Ability bleed is gnarly enough as it is (being able to kill you in only a few rounds) it doesn't need to be harder to cure as well.
Edit: Not to mention that with a 3 round casting time, Lesser Restoration is not a combat spell. I hope the Wizard can survive till the end of combat or the party can survive 3 whole rounds being down 2 characters.
And a DC 25 First Aid check takes an hour. Good Luck with that, too.
+1.
Realism is important and all that, but dieing from a relatively low-level effect caused by some random wandering monster, because the cleric didn't prepare Lesser Restoration? That's not fun, and therefore bad. Fun beats realism.
Besides, isn't the general consensus that Clerics/Druids/etc should not be forced to devote their spells to healing the party? Isn't this a step backwards?
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Realism is important and all that, but dieing from a relatively low-level effect caused by some random wandering monster, because the cleric didn't prepare Lesser Restoration? That's not fun, and therefore bad. Fun beats realism.
While there are very few things out there that cause ability bleed, there are tons of things that cause ability damage. Preparing lesser restoration has become almost as standard as preparing cure light wounds (if you don't have spontaneous divine casting) and magic missile.
Besides, isn't the general consensus that Clerics/Druids/etc should not be forced to devote their spells to healing the party? Isn't this a step backwards?
Adding channel energy to the cleric's reportoire did not suddenly make them abdicate their healing role in the party, although it does allow them to broaden their horizons a lot. Channel energy won't heal broken bones, it won't cure negative levels, it won't cure ability damage. Clerics are still vital in the healing role.
Realism is important and all that, but dieing from a relatively low-level effect caused by some random wandering monster, because the cleric didn't prepare Lesser Restoration? That's not fun, and therefore bad. Fun beats realism.While there are very few things out there that cause ability bleed, there are tons of things that cause ability damage. Preparing lesser restoration has become almost as standard as preparing cure light wounds (if you don't have spontaneous divine casting) and magic missile.
If you're using critical deck, which is the most common source of ability bleed, you can get ability bleed even before you're capable of casting the spell - especially if you lack a cleric/druid. This is bad in that it forces you to have a cleric/druid until you are of a high enough level to get a wand (and they're not that cheap) - forcing a class down the player's throats isn't a good idea.
Also, this would force LR to be FAR more standard than CLW or MM. CLW I see in maybe 1/3 of all druid repertoars at 1st level, and once they get a wand, never again. MM I see prepared at levels 5-9 in MAYBE 1/5 of all wizards - Since I switched from 3.5 to PF, I've never seen a sorcerer learn it. Those aren't standard spells really, but LR wouldn't just be a "standard spell" it would be an "if you don't have easy access to this spell, don't leave your door".
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If you're using critical deck, which is the most common source of ability bleed, you can get ability bleed even before you're capable of casting the spell - especially if you lack a cleric/druid. This is bad in that it forces you to have a cleric/druid until you are of a high enough level to get a wand (and they're not that cheap) - forcing a class down the player's throats isn't a good idea.
First level parties that don't have some kind of healing spellcaster among their number (or rich parents so they can stockpile potions) are one of two things - dead, or damned lucky!
If you're using critical deck, which is the most common source of ability bleed, you can get ability bleed even before you're capable of casting the spell - especially if you lack a cleric/druid. This is bad in that it forces you to have a cleric/druid until you are of a high enough level to get a wand (and they're not that cheap) - forcing a class down the player's throats isn't a good idea.First level parties that don't have some kind of healing spellcaster among their number (or rich parents so they can stockpile potions) are one of two things - dead, or damned lucky!
Healing is far more inefficient than preventing damage, and at first level spells are usually too precious to allow wasting resources on stuff like that. Our groups usually opt to have someone with the healing skill (which now can heal 1+Wis hit points once per day per character), but no other healing when they begin at first level. They usually try to save up to a wand of CLW quite soon though.
Yes, you can have a cure light wounds that heal 1/3 of the fighter's hit points, but instead you could have Entangle or Calm Animals that can win a fight and make sure the fighter doesn't take any damage at all.EDIT: Lol, can't write fighter's _ hit points xD
EDIT2: And first level is far less deadly than higher levels. The average attack for a high damage CR2 creature, which is about the strongest things you should fight, is +4, average damage 10 - and that's a dangerous fight. Since it's against a single target at quite low levels (so probably no flight or the like, and large risk of being quite stupid) it's usually easy to get it to attack the fighter - who'll have to be hit twice to drop, and even then won't be even close to dieing (first level hp 10 + 2 con +1 FC means 20 damage will drop to -7, 6 rounds from dying unless you're defensively minded and pick Toughness in which case 16 hp means -4, 12 rounds from dying). AC for a 1st level fighter a bit into the level (since you don't drop CR2 monsters as a first encounter)? Maybe 18 or 20 or so (10 base +2 dex +6 chain mail, maybe a shield). So chance to be dropped after taking two rounds worth of attacks from a challenging encounter, if the party hasn't been able to debuff it, assuming average damage rolled? 12%. And that's for an offensive-minded fighter. If he wears a heavy shield, the numbers drop to 6%.
And yes, he can get dropped (but not killed!) by a lucky critical, but with the crit deck and the rule you supposed, he WOULD get killed by a lucky critical, and he can't do anything about it - even if he HAD access to healing.
EDIT5124123: My players just got through the first part of RotR as three first level characters without steady access to healing - a bard, a rogue and a ranger. No-one died, and I even had to scale up a few fights (add in reinforcements for the enemy), and these aren't veteran players of D&D (though they're veterans of other games, they've only played D&D for two months). Now, RotR is on the easier side, but I can't see anyone saying first level is that dangerous as attack bonuses are so low opponents rarely hit, and SoS effects are rarely lethal (if you've got a party to back you up).
Channel energy won't heal broken bones, it won't cure negative levels, it won't cure ability damage. Clerics are still vital in the healing role.
The other things are not as likely to own your character as ability bleed is either. You can get by with all the other things. Balance > Realism.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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If you're using critical deck, which is the most common source of ability bleed, you can get ability bleed even before you're capable of casting the spell - especially if you lack a cleric/druid. This is bad in that it forces you to have a cleric/druid until you are of a high enough level to get a wand (and they're not that cheap) - forcing a class down the player's throats isn't a good idea.First level parties that don't have some kind of healing spellcaster among their number (or rich parents so they can stockpile potions) are one of two things - dead, or damned lucky!
In my current group, I handle most of the healing with my Witch, with occasional assistance from the party Bard. Neither of us have lesser restoration on our spell list.
Besides, even with a cleric/druid, parties won't get the spell until 3rd level, leaving Heal checks as the only way to get rid of your version of ability bleed. At first level, with a 16 Wis, a character would have to roll an 18 or better to hit DC 25 (16 if they bust out a Healer's Kit, at the cost of 1/3 of their starting gold). Not good odds, and for every failed roll the character drops further and further into suckitude.
Speaking of realism... what the flup is ability bleed?
I gotcha on Con, its like normal bleeding but a ton of it from really vital spots.
How am i losing the rest of those?
Str - muscles oozing from my body?
Dex - spinal fluid?
Int - brains oozing out?
Wis / Cha - uhhh i don't even have a half guess.
I know what caused it helps give a hint, but I'm really not sure for most of them, and don't quite know what to tell my players any suggestions
The physical ones I can understand. Any physical injury could simulate them, but the mental ones should hopefully come from a magical affect. They could also represent a severe concussion I guess.
Speaking of realism... what the flup is ability bleed?
I gotcha on Con, its like normal bleeding but a ton of it from really vital spots.
How am i losing the rest of those?
Str - muscles oozing from my body?
Dex - spinal fluid?
Int - brains oozing out?
Wis / Cha - uhhh i don't even have a half guess.
I know what caused it helps give a hint, but I'm really not sure for most of them, and don't quite know what to tell my players any suggestions
Well mental ability damage from a good boink to the head I can understand, bleed less so. Dex and Strength bleed is just slightly more likely, I think they just should stick with bleed and ability damage or maybe drain if it is really bad, the horror kinda goes away when the cleric channels once anyway, so you end up losing 1 point constitution from that massive bleed (no game effect) and everyone gets some hitpoints.. continue..
When they use the term "bleed" you shouldn't take it as literally leaking out of the body. It just means a consistent reduction of the ability score (or hit points). It doesn't have to be actual blood or muscle mass.
For strength, imagine you are struck so hard that you start losing the capacity to hold things because your nerves are injured. (As a diabetic, I know what it's like to start losing strength and for it to get worse as time passes. I have had my blood sugar drop to the point that I can't hold the glucometer which weighs less than 2 pounds.) Maybe you were hit in a vital area such as the back or abdomen and the wound is causing you to twist and turn in ways that cause more damage as your body tries to compensate.
For dexterity, imagine that you are punch drunk because the bugbear just smashed you over the head with his club. You could be struck so hard that you start to lose vision. You aren't going completely blind but the world is getting foggy or dark. Maybe you were struck in the chest and you can't catch your breath fast enough to maintain your balance.
For constitution, maybe it's internal bleeding.
For intelligence, you can easily be hit in the head and fluid leaking out of your ears, eyes, and nose. This is a serious brain injury in the real world and can be very lethal.
For wisdom, you can use the same things for intelligence. Maybe you were struck in a different part of the brain.
For charisma, maybe you have a physical wound that is getting worse or a portion of your brain was struck just wrong.
There are plenty of ways to have bleed damage with each of the attributes. It is also not a good idea to make them worse than they are. Even if they are rare, they are still potentially more lethal than other types of injuries. Remember that ability bleed affects more than a single score. Those scores affect your skills, saves, attacks, damage, spells, hit points, and many class abilities. Simply losing 1 point a round causes loss quickly. As has been mentioned, it can take several rounds to fix the problem. Losing 2-4 points of an ability in combat can be more dangerous than losing a few hit points.
The rarity of the potential for ability bleed damage is the argument for not making it more difficult to deal with. Parties just won't be prepared and it can mean the difference between a TPK and continuing on. What if it's the healer that has the ability bleed and they die? What happens if it happens to another character before they can get a replacement healer?
If the GM wants to be lenient, you can just have ability bleed tick once per minute instead of once per round.
...He said, several months late.